Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

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Qwynegold
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Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by Qwynegold »

Can anyone confirm this?
Wikipedia wrote:Japanese pitch accent also varies in how it interacts with syllables and morae. Kagoshima is a purely syllabic dialect, while Osaka is moraic. For example, the low-tone unaccented noun shimbun 'newspaper' is [ɕìm̀búɴ́] in Kagoshima, with the high tone spread across the entire final syllable bun, but in Osaka it is [ɕìm̀bùɴ́], with the high tone restricted to the final mora n. In Tokyo, accent placement is constrained by the syllable, though the downstep occurs between the morae of that syllable. That is, a stressed syllable in Tokyo dialect, as in kai 'shell' or 算 san 'divining rod', will always have the pattern /kaꜜi/ [káì], /saꜜɴ/ [sáɴ̀], never */kaiꜜ/, */saɴꜜ/.[7] In Osaka, however, either pattern may occur: tombi 'black kite' is [tóm̀bì] in Tokyo but [tòḿbì] in Osaka.
So, in Tokyo dialect, the accented mora may never be ん or the final い of a diphthong? (But when there are vowels in hiatus, the accent may very well be on the second vowel.)
I have a dictionary that has counterexamples regarding diphthongs, for example 博愛 [hakuaí], 場合 [baaí], 野菜 [yasaí], 逸材 [itsuzaí]. This dictionary doesn't say which dialect it is, but can't one assume that in that case it is Tokyo dialect? Could it be that this dictionary is simply wrong? It is really old.
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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by finlay »

the standard accent has an upstep on the second mora and a downstep later in the word, so those are just marking the syllable after which the downstep happens. so [bàáí] etc. especially if it's an old dictionary, it will probably not be using IPA correctly - I've noticed that the way the IPA is used in Japan the ´ accent tends to be used to mark stress in English words, and it's the way all my students preferred to mark stress on English words, and this is probably a manifestation of the same thing - only marking the prominent syllable. Also they called English stress "accent". I'm not convinced that stress and pitch accent are really different things, anyway.

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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by Terra »

and it's the way all my students preferred to mark stress on English words
Your students have to write IPA representations of English words?

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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by finlay »

No. But maybe half of them had learned it in school so I used to test it out on them to see if they'd know it already. Recently I changed jobs and I don't generally do it in the new one, partly because I type up their notes on the computer and it can't handle IPA or anything beyond simple characters so I use ad hoc respellings instead.

(Also the IPA that we tend to use in English teaching is an abbreviated version of the one that's used in real linguistics and doesn't include any unnecessary symbols)

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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by jal »

finlay wrote:unnecessary symbols
Like? Length marking?


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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by Qwynegold »

finlay wrote:the standard accent has an upstep on the second mora and a downstep later in the word, so those are just marking the syllable after which the downstep happens. so [bàáí] etc. especially if it's an old dictionary, it will probably not be using IPA correctly - I've noticed that the way the IPA is used in Japan the ´ accent tends to be used to mark stress in English words, and it's the way all my students preferred to mark stress on English words, and this is probably a manifestation of the same thing - only marking the prominent syllable. Also they called English stress "accent". I'm not convinced that stress and pitch accent are really different things, anyway.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. The acute accent marks the accented syllable in this dictionary, so <baaí> would be [ba.a͡iꜜ] or [bà.áí]. The dictionary contrasts VVꜜ and VꜜV. (I don't have it with me at the moment, so I can't give any examples.)
Last edited by Qwynegold on Thu Jun 25, 2015 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by finlay »

There are two main patterns: unless the first syllable is accented, in which case it is H followed by all L, syllables between the second and the accented one are all H. There is always an upstep on the second one, unless there's actually a downstep. So in a three syllable word like that, you can have HLL, LHL, or LHH (you cannot have LLH), and you can also have one without an accent, in which case when you add an extra syllable like a particle you would get LHHH instead of LHHL like in the case of baai above.

Anyway except for a few two-syllable minimal pairs (hashi and hashi, or whatever), it's not a very prominent feature of Japanese phonology in my opinion.

(I may be failing to answer your actual question though, sorry)

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Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

Post by Qwynegold »

Ah, I've edited my previous post now to make it more correct and clear. Anyway, the only real question I have is: Can we determine that Wikipedia is right when it's saying that words such as /kaiꜜ/ or /sanꜜ/ may not exist in Tokyo dialect?
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